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Saturday, October 15, 2016

DNS at SPBM

As hundreds of runner friends countdown the last few hours to the Sriram Properties Bengaluru Marathon on 16th October I am brooding over the second DNS(Did Not Start) of my running career to add to the two DNFs (Did Not Finish). DNS is when one registers and trains for a race and is unable to or decides against participating due to travel or injury etc. DNF is when one starts the race and is unable to complete the targeted/registered distance due to circumstances during the run.

Participation in SPBM 2016 was ruled out when the right calf hurt during a slow 5K run a little over a week ago. While it is depressing as my training was going very well and I was looking forward to a sub 3:45 at my first FM at this event skipping it will enable to have some decent runs during the rest of this season. With no running since the end of September and probably for another week I downgraded from 75K to 50K at the Bangalore Ultra in November and decided not to run the Goa River marathon. A cascading effect is probably Comrades will need to put off for a couple of years.

While many injured/non-particpating runners like to go the expo and interact with runners and/or volunteer during the event I prefer to just stay away from it. I just don't feel like explaining my injury to other runners - miss participation just by going through the pre and post run FB updates of friends. Besides I want to keep my record of volunteering only for non-commercial runs.